The case for a UN resolution

The time was right for a United Nations Resolution on diabetes

A United Nations Resolution on diabetes focuses world attention on the need to stop the growing diabetes epidemic through urgent action. The solutions require the attention of the global family of nations. To do nothing was no longer an option. Diabetes is emerging from the shadows because the United Nations led the global response and declared a Resolution on diabetes.

Diabetes is a global pandemic

Though it now affects more than 245 million people worldwide and is expected to affect over 380 million by 2025, diabetes still lurks in the shadows. Diabetes is a growing epidemic that threatens to overwhelm healthcare services and undermine economies worldwide - especially in developing countries.

Diabetes is a chronic disease marked by elevated blood glucose levels.In many countries in Asia, the Middle East, Oceania and the Caribbean, diabetes affects up to 20% of the adult population.
Of the entire global adult population, more than five percent have diabetes.
While diabetes kills as many people as HIV/AIDS, awareness of the disease is low and as a consequence the epidemic remains hidden.

An ominous rise in type 2 diabetes will place a severe burden on medical services if left unchecked. Type 2 diabetes is due to the body’s resistance to insulin and is responsible for 90 to 95 percent of diabetes cases. Type 1 diabetes, which is characterized by a lack of production of insulin in the body, is also increasing alarmingly.

Indigenous populations worldwide are at risk of being wiped out because of their genetic risk for type 2 diabetes. This combined with increased urbanization, high cases of obesity, sedentary lifestyles and stress is resulting in very high rates of diabetes in indigenous communities. With 50 percent of adults over the age of 35 in these groups worldwide having diabetes, the very existence of some of these communities is threatened. For many it is a race against time to turn the epidemic around.

Diabetes has an overwhelming economic impact globally

As a result of the scale of the problem, no single government or region is equipped to tackle it.Countries with the least resources are expected to bear the brunt of the increase in diabetes cases and the burden of the associated costs. The humanitarian, social and economic costs are immense.

Diabetes is responsible for over one million amputations each year.
It is a major cause of blindness.
It is the largest cause of kidney failure in developed countries and is responsible for huge dialysis costs.
Additionally, people with diabetes are two to four times more likely to develop cardiovascular disease than people without it.

If nothing is done, healthcare budgets will be unable to pay for the cost of diabetes care, healthcare services will not have the human resources to look after the increased numbers with the disease and in many countries the disease will subvert the gains of economic advancement.

While diabetes is not yet curable, in many cases type 2 diabetes is preventable. If governments begin now by promoting proven low-cost strategies that alter diet, increase physical activity and modify lifestyle, the epidemic can be reversed.

To do nothing is morally indefensible and makes no economic sense, because the projected increases in diabetes will outstrip the ability of health systems and governments. It was time for Governments to act.

top

back